Lifestyle

Intel overhauls fertility benefits, hopes to attract more women

By most standards, the highly skilled American tech worker is incredibly lucky: Big-name companies routinely hand out generous benefits to help their ambitious employees pursue both family and career. By doing so, they raise the stakes for recruiting the best and most diverse talent.

Intel is the latest tech giant to offer lavish benefits as a means of accomplishing this goal. On Tuesday the Santa Clara, California-based chip maker announced it is overhauling its coverage of fertility and and adoption services.

Intel will now offer salaried employees, including hourly workers, $40,000 in lifetime medical coverage for fertility treatment like in-vitro fertilization, in addition to $20,000 in prescription drug coverage. That quadruples the previous fertility benefits available to employees.

The benefit for adoptive parents is tripling from $5,000 to $15,000 per child, and the lifetime cap will be lifted. The company also decided to cover the cost when its employees freeze their eggs, sperm, embryos or cord blood.

In addition, the new policies provide LGBT employees access to subsidized fertility and surrogacy services for the first time. They were previously ineligible and paid out-of-pocket because the benefit required a medical diagnosis of infertility.

Ogden Reid, vice president and director of compensation and benefits, tells Mashable the new benefits are designed to help attract and retain working parents, particularly women who might otherwise leave the workforce when they become mothers.

"At the end of the day," Reid says, "it’s about creating a work environment and culture that says you’re balancing an intense work life with a great family life."

Carolyn Betts, CEO of the San Francisco-based Betts Recruiting, says Intel's new benefits are highly competitive and will likely appeal to more senior women in their 30s and 40s who delayed starting a family. That includes not only prospective employees but current staff who might be tempted to leave in search of a better position with even better benefits.

"Retention is something I’m seeing companies focus on right now because the market is so hot," Betts says.

She's also noticed increased interest in using benefits to help rectify the gender imbalance common to so many tech companies. "It’s no longer acceptable to have your entire C-suite be all male," she says.

Indeed, women have long felt unwelcome in the tech industry thanks in part to a startup work ethic that prizes dedication to the job above all else.

Intel comprises more than 100,000 employees across the globe, and three-quarters of its American workforce are men. That split gets worse among technical staff and leadership, with 80% and 83% of men, respectively, claiming the majority of positions.

Earlier this year, Intel launched a $300 million plan to ensure the company reached "full representation" of women and underrepresented minorities by 2020.

Several hundred Intel employees seek fertility services, and 30 to 40 attempt to adopt children annually. Reid says the details of the new benefits weren't "pulled out of the air."

The fertility coverage was meant to increase the odds of success.

At the former $10,000 level of coverage, the company paid for half of an IVF cycle; the odds of just one leading to pregnancy are between 20% and 30%, according to Reid. The enhanced adoption coverage reflects the rising fees associated with adopting both domestically and internationally.

Intel's benefits for freezing eggs and sperm actually lag Silicon Valley industry leaders. Facebook and Apple announced coverage of these services a year ago.

Several big tech firms have rushed to make their medical and paid leave policies as family-friendly as possible in recent months.

In August, Netflix said salaried employees in its streaming division would receive a year of paid leave following a birth or adoption. Soon after, Adobe expanded paid leave for new mothers and fathers. And earlier this year, Intel added eight weeks of paid "bonding" leave for both men and women, in addition to a maximum 13 weeks of paid maternity leave.

Reid says the company envisions a future where employees no longer feel torn between work and home.

"The days where you had to choose one or the other," he says, "we want to put that behind us."

Mashable
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